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拍品专文
A sensitively sculpted work on an intimate scale, Henry Moore's Family Group was conceived in 1945 and describes a scene of domestic harmony in which both a mother and father tenderly hold a young child. The scale of the work establishes a sense of intimacy illustrating Moore's belief that 'the actual physical size has an emotional meaning' (Moore, quoted C. Lichtenstern, Henry Moore. Work - Theory - Impact, London, 2008, p. 275).
Moore's family groups developed out his interest in the theme of the mother and child, first explored by him in 1922. Signifying birth, creation and the expression of human emotion, the subject of the mother and child was a recurrent and fundamental motif throughout Moore's career. The addition of a male figure to the mother and child grouping was a departure for Moore; as he explained: 'in my work, women must outnumber men by at least fifty to one. Men get brought in when they are essential to the subject, for example in a family group' (Moore, quoted in G. Gelburd, 'Introduction', in Mother and Child: the Art of Henry Moore, exh. cat., New York, 1987, p. 30). The seventh child in a family of eight, Moore was particularly attuned to family life and the protective bond of parents to their children, something which is so acutely communicated in Family Group.
A conjunction of factors led to the appearance of the family in Moore's oeuvre at this time. Moore's exploration of groups of women and children in his celebrated series of 'Shelter drawings' perhaps served as the impetus for the development and extension of the mother and child theme to that of the family group. It was also at this time that Moore began to make a series of drawings and maquettes in various media intended towards a commission for a piece of sculpture for a village college at Impington near Cambridge. Although this commission was not realized owing to a lack of funding, Moore was approached by the progressive Barclay School in Herefordshire and later the Harlow Art Trust, and using the ideas for family groups developed in 1944-45, he produced the celebrated Stevenage Family Group (1948-9) and the Harley Family Group (1954-5).
The notion of rebirth and regeneration in war-torn Britain and the pervasive view that a 'happy home and family life' would become 'the bulwark of a nation', no doubt contributed to Moore's conception of family groups at this moment (C. Langhamer, 'The Meanings of Home in Postwar Britain', Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 40, 2005, p. 345).The war had profoundly disrupted the fabric of family life and Moore's illustration of the ideal nuclear family unit in Family Group reflects the central position this social institution assumed in William Beveridge's prescription for a new British welfare state.
Moore's family groups developed out his interest in the theme of the mother and child, first explored by him in 1922. Signifying birth, creation and the expression of human emotion, the subject of the mother and child was a recurrent and fundamental motif throughout Moore's career. The addition of a male figure to the mother and child grouping was a departure for Moore; as he explained: 'in my work, women must outnumber men by at least fifty to one. Men get brought in when they are essential to the subject, for example in a family group' (Moore, quoted in G. Gelburd, 'Introduction', in Mother and Child: the Art of Henry Moore, exh. cat., New York, 1987, p. 30). The seventh child in a family of eight, Moore was particularly attuned to family life and the protective bond of parents to their children, something which is so acutely communicated in Family Group.
A conjunction of factors led to the appearance of the family in Moore's oeuvre at this time. Moore's exploration of groups of women and children in his celebrated series of 'Shelter drawings' perhaps served as the impetus for the development and extension of the mother and child theme to that of the family group. It was also at this time that Moore began to make a series of drawings and maquettes in various media intended towards a commission for a piece of sculpture for a village college at Impington near Cambridge. Although this commission was not realized owing to a lack of funding, Moore was approached by the progressive Barclay School in Herefordshire and later the Harlow Art Trust, and using the ideas for family groups developed in 1944-45, he produced the celebrated Stevenage Family Group (1948-9) and the Harley Family Group (1954-5).
The notion of rebirth and regeneration in war-torn Britain and the pervasive view that a 'happy home and family life' would become 'the bulwark of a nation', no doubt contributed to Moore's conception of family groups at this moment (C. Langhamer, 'The Meanings of Home in Postwar Britain', Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 40, 2005, p. 345).The war had profoundly disrupted the fabric of family life and Moore's illustration of the ideal nuclear family unit in Family Group reflects the central position this social institution assumed in William Beveridge's prescription for a new British welfare state.